Robert D. Johnston is an award-winning professor of history and the director of the Teaching of History program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has written and edited numerous essays and books, including The Making of America: The History of the United States from 1492 to the Present.

Douglas Brinkley is the director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and a professor of history at the University of New Orleans. He is a bestselling author who has written The American Heritage History of the United States, as well as books on Jimmy Carter, James Forrestal, and FDR.